Email Server / MX / DNS Basics

[Moif_Murphy]

Hi all,

I'm investigating the possibility of replacing our externally Hosted Exchange server with something inhouse. I'm a home Linux user and have a relatively decent level of Linux knowledge but this migration attempt has made me aware that I don't know as much as I thought I did.

I've built a Centos 5 server at woek and we're running an Open Source version of Zimbra. So far everything works great internally but I'm a little stumped with the whole external domain, DNS and MX record thing.

We have an Active Directory server which is also our DNS server. I've successfully (read: blindly) added the MX record to this DNS server in order to get Zimbra to work so the next step is to test on a external domain that we'd be using for company wide email delivery.

I presume we'll need to buy our domain name and host it here? Or can we buy a domain name and host it elsewhere and add / adjust MX records ourselves.

I think we'll be wanting to do everything internally so we can learn as we go.

Any advice appreciated.

[infoshirish]

Hey,
What exactly you need to know or you are strucked regarding external domain, DNS and MX record thing.?
Well you can do it both ways,
1. Firstly you need to buy your domain an can go in for Dedicated Server, which means theres a full access given to you as well as to webhosting company where tech persons takes care of your dedicated server.
2. Or either way you can buy a domain name and host it elsewhere and add / adjust MX records ourselves. Known as Reseller account. Though cheap in cost but have to manage most things yourself.
All this is done under the most popular utilities like Cpanel / WHM see the link below:-
cPanel - The Leading Control Panel

Finally i would suggest you to have your account / domain to host with some webhosting company for example mine
Technical Support | Outsourcing | Consulting
You can contact me on sites fax and phone numbers if you need.


Regards,
Shirish K Jagtap,
Linux System Administrator,
U & D Square Solutions Pvt Ltd.
Pune, India.
My Webpage: Welcome to My Page......

[Moif_Murphy]

Hi Shirish,

What I need to know is if I were to buy an external domain what do I need to do to host this on-site and how it ties into our email server.

Will we need a public facing server? Public facing IP address? What kind of bandwidth will we be needing for approx 300+ staff spread over 30 sites etc etc

I'm beginning to think that having it hosted elsewhere will be the easier option but we'd really like to gain the knowledge ourselves.